‘THE BOX’ MOVIE REVIEW: STRONG PERFORMANCES AND INTERESTING DETAILS TURN COMPELLING STORY INTO SUCCESSFUL FILM

A man shows up at your door one day carrying a box. On the box is a button.

Push the button, he tells you, and somewhere in the world, someone will die.

Do you push it?

Of course not, you think. All right. But suppose the person who’d die is someone you don’t know. And that the moment they died, you got a million dollars.

Now — did the question just get harder?

That is almost the whole of “Button, Button,” a classic short story by the great Richard Matheson. And Richard Kelly, an intriguingly eccentric director, has now turned it into a feature film.

He’s done that by using Matheson’s tale as a jumping-off point. Who is this stranger, anyway? What are his motives? And who is the woman who answers the door, and her husband, and what’s their story?

It doesn’t all come together — but then neither did “Donnie Darko,” Kelly’s first film, a stylish (and, sometimes, incomprehensible) meditation on fate, time travel, mental illness and giant demonic rabbits. But still, wasn’t it fun to try to figure out? (Unlike his follow-up, “Southland Tales,” which never made sense, and was an ordeal to sit through.)

“The Box” is more straightforward than “Darko,” however — admittedly, not difficult — and like that film, anchored by some strong but subtle performances.

Cameron Diaz, for example — as usual, better than she’s often given credit for — brings a warmth to the woman who opens the door to temptation. And Frank Langella, precise in hat and overcoat, is a polite and yet threatening presence as the man with the offer, and secrets of his own (and arather nasty CGI scar).

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‘THE FOURTH KIND’ MOVIE REVIEW: SO-CALLED TRUE STORY SEEMS FAKE

So now, here comes “The Fourth Kind,” another one of those films “based on real events.” And they have a far more entertaining idea. All those people who disappeared forever? Or showed up the next morning, staggering about, forgetful and disoriented?

Abducted by aliens. Um-hmm. You betcha. Big, Sumerian-speaking, bug-eyed aliens.

I’m sorry, but if this is the bus to Crazy Town, I think you just passed my stop.

“The Fourth Kind” isn’t content, though, to simply exploit some real-life tragedies to push a cheap movie. That would be too easy. So it pastes its production together out of “archival footage,” “actual” audio tapes and other bits of “evidence.”

Now, this is a good weird start (and not unlike another based-on-a-true-story spookshow, “The Mothman Prophecies”) but “The Fourth Kind” pushes things too far by incorporating all sorts of “actual” footage. Which is all so obviously faked — and dull — that far from drawing us in, it just makes us roll our eyes. And check our watches.

Jovovich cries a lot, which seems to be a perfectly reasonable reaction to realizing you’ve just set up your upscale therapy practice in Nome, Alaska. Good ol’ actor Will Patton chews the scenery like a wad of Skoal. The monsters are never shown, which is annoying, and the wooden director appears as himself, which is even more annoying.

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RUMOR OF NAKED DANIEL RADCLIFFE IN ‘DEATHLY HALLOWS’ DEBUNKED

“Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe apparently will not get down to his birthday suit in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I”. Responding to the nude speculation ignited by Sorrisi e Canzoni magazine’s interview with director David Yates, was the 20-year-old’s representative. To Gossip Cop, the rep noted the otherwise, shooting down the story by branding it “complete fabrication”.

This is not the first time the English actor has been hit with bare-all rumor for “Deathly Hallows”. Back in August, Radcliffe had been reported confessing that he will shed some skins in the movie. “At first I thought I’d have pants (underwear) on for the scene. Apparently not,” he said before adding that his “Equus” play has prepared him for it. “But I’ve sort of done that before on stage. It’s all old hat now, really.”

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What do you think of today’s movies news? Will you see ‘Teh Box’? Also Also what do you think of ‘The Fourth Kind’, will you see it? Lastly, what do you think about the Daniel Radcliffe news?